Coherent Control of Energy Transport at Room Temperature in a Noisy Bath

Abstract

Coherent control of energy transport in a non-equilibrium steady-state (NESS) in a reaction-center-connected donor-acceptor pair is proposed. The pigments are considered to be continuously interacting with incoherent radiation and a phonon bath while being driven by phase-controlled coherent fields. Coherent excitation of the donor-acceptor pair is shown to induce interference between excitation pathways, resulting in phase dependent modulation of the flux. As a consequence one can enhance or suppress energy transfer via interference, e.g. an optical energy switch. The persistence of such interference enables coherent control at a NESS in dissipative regime suggests an extension of the operational scope of quantum control from traditional transient domain with low dissiaption to noisy environment NESS at room temperature.